The complete steam news magazine

Off the shelf: 28 October 2011

This month's book reviews by Heritage Railway.

From models to the real thing, you’ll find much to inspire you in our selection of good reads & DVDs.

If you have a title you'd like us to review, please drop the HR team a line from our contact page.

Bristol & Bath Railways

BY COLIN MAGGS
(softback, Countryside Books, 128pp, £9.95, ISBN 978 1 84674 204 0).

THE latest in the Age of Steam series, retired schoolmaster Colin Maggs’ 90th book, looks at the impact that the coming of the railway had on Bristol and Bath.

Everyone thinks that the first railway hereabouts was Brunels’s GWR main line: However, a stone quarry line was built near Bath in 1731, nearly a quarter of a century before, and Bristol’s first railway was the Bristol & Gloucestershire opened on August 7, 1835.

Drawing on many local anecdotes and memories of old steam men, the author looks at the multi-faced aspects of the steam era: expansion of the network, operation, locomotives, freight, stations and signals, special trains like football excursions, wartime and train crashes.

It is an absorbing read for the local enthusiast and general reader alike.